


Three Crones Meet on a Rock

by heget



Series: Vanyar [8]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Determined Great-grandmothers, Gen, Reunited lovers, Vanyar aren't Boring, the first sign of civilization is a healed leg bone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:21:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23279278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heget/pseuds/heget
Summary: ...and Other Assorted Post Notes to the Task of Following the Wind"The followups to"Dreadful Wind".
Series: Vanyar [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/84973
Comments: 5
Kudos: 8





	1. Three Old Crones Meet on a Rock

**Author's Note:**

> This depends on the first three chapters of ["Of Ingwë Ingweron"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1367419/chapters/2858263) and ["Dreadful Wind"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12162990/chapters/27604236) for context.

The Dowager High Queen of All Elves, Mahtamë of the White Arms, Mother of High King Ingwë, of the First Generation of the First Tribe of the First Children, sat on a rock. It wasn’t an impressive rock. Mahtamë was in the middle of a rapidly drowning Beleriand ravaged by the final year of centuries of war -one that was rather swiftly going to end thanks mostly to the efforts of her people- and she was not alone. A mother of a High King should not be alone, especially not in the middle of a nearly desolate wasteland only a few miles away from an active battlefield (it was a really nice rock). Her company, however, was not ladies-in-waiting or attentive soldiers, not even elven. They were a pair of old mortal women. One was far older than the other, a stooped figure with bleary cataract-blinded eyes and toothless mouth who needed the other gray-haired woman to hold her upright. Mahtamë had greeted them cordially and offered to share her rock (it was a lovely rock). The women introduced themselves, fumbling over language and the fact that the older of the two mortal women was almost deaf in one ear and loosing hearing in the other. The one with gray instead of patchy-balding white hair explained that the woman was her mother’s sister, and they had been separated from their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Mahtamë delighted to learn the new vocabulary. “I too am a grandmother’s mother. And at least one more generation down.”

“But you look so young!” the gray-haired mortal woman said, pointed at the unwrinkled face and golden hair of Mahtamë, and the elf woman laughed.

“I am as old as is possible for my kind.” 

“We couldn’t tell,” said the woman as she helped her aged aunt get comfortable on the rocky seat, rubbing the arthritic knees to try to return feeling to the swollen flesh. The toothless woman smiled.

“Sounds like,” the older of the two mortals croaked, “young woman.” 

Her companion laughed, “Indeed, _Prababa-a._ ” She turned back to her fellow companion on this (nice and wide, quite fortuitous) rock. “The elves are fortunate to escape these ravages of time that cripple us. Are we the first you have met, Lady Elf, mortals afflicted by what age does to us? Turns us into to feeble old crones, the pair of us!” the woman said these disparaging words, but for her all her bitterness, she held her companion tenderly.

Mahtamë, who was but lately come to this war in Beleriand, answered truthfully. “Mortals, yes, those who are thus by the mere advancement of age.” She pulled back her sleeve to uncover the white scars of her arm, the limb that once hung dead and useless at her side.

The older of the two mortal women mumbled something to her companion in the whispery, creaky voice of a centenarian. Her caretaker turned back to Mahtamë, “Gracious Lady, why-”

“Why am I out here, all alone in this wilderness?” Mahtamë interrupted. “I am searching for my husband.”

“Your husband?”

“He’s dead,” Mahtamë answered briskly. “Oh, don’t fret. You know by now that elves can be killed same as mortals, and he has been dead for a very long time. Even for us elves.” Mahtamë chuckled. “But elven souls stay instead of going off like mortal do, so his is still here. Somewhere here,” Mahtamë stressed, slapping her hand firmly against the rock (a really nice guiltless rock who did nothing to deserve that). “So I mean to call him back to me, by singing.”

Unsaid was how her husband died, or why, or how familiar to her was that clutch of loved one’s arm so that they may stand upright, to be their eyes and balance when in need of such assistance oneself.

“I heard a story like that!” the gray-haired woman said brightly. “T’was another elven lady, sang her love back from the grave.”

“Were you abandoned by your people?” Mahtamë asked delicately, looking with pity at the old mortals.

“Oh, not intentionally,” the old women laughed. “They’ll be quite worried for us, our grandchildren.”

Mahtamë read deeper into the causal dismissal, placed these old women against the wounds of her personal history, saw the difference made when every member of a people knew that eventually they too would become infirm and reliant on another’s care. As if it would be unusual, unnatural for a tribe to otherwise. Deep rage welled up through her body, shaking her like prey in a cat’s mouth, but to the mortal women observing her, she was as still as the rock that she sat on.

“Yes, well, until your people find you, I shall keep you company, if that pleases you. And tell you stories about my kin. That lady that sang her husband from Mandos wasn’t one of mine, but her-” here Mahtamë paused and did some quick calculations, “granddaughter married the grandson of one of my grandsons.”

The old women agreed that would be nice. (The rock would have agreed, if it weren’t a rock).


	2. Sing You Back

This is the story sung by Vanyar troops as they disembarked one last time from the gangway of the Falmari ships to stumble onto dry land, weary but relieved to be home. Coming to Beleriand the elves had embraced the tale of Beren and Lúthien, the lovers whose daring and steadfastness kept them together through twice-death, but the Vanyar had discovered their own story amidst the horror. Nowhere near as grand a tale, but one that truly belonged to the First Tribe, to the golden-haired shepherds and plowmen and singers and mathematicians of Valmar and the mountain slopes of the Pelóri. This is the rumor spread throughout their barracks, the story retold on troop transports home:

Mahtamë, the Mother of King and Queen, dignified matron of the elves, chooses to stay in Beleriand until the end of the War. Mahtamë of the White Arms, Mahtamë Dowager Queen Mother, yes, that Mahtamë. She has a quest, and will not leave, no matter how much this disrupts anyone’s plans or distresses her family. The council of generals tried to dissuade her; she was not dissuaded. Mahtamë is going hunting, and it has been a long time since she hunted for herself. ("Going Hunting," the Vanyar monks now soldiers say, in the old accent for those words, with a reverence and meaning. None of them have gone hunting in Valinor, not as those archaic tones mean.)

Mahtamë marches along the borders of Valar-controlled territory, hunting for her husband. ("Who is her husband? The Dreadful Wind, aie. That cruel wraith of the enemy.") She will lure this spirit of Morgoth back to her. Everyone is aghast and terrified for her- then mildly terrified of her. ("Will you travel to the No-man's Land to tell the High King's mother to return from her Hunting? Me neither.")

Mahtamë’s plan is simple. She sings. Old songs, her songs, their songs. Songs that had been buried by grander or more appropriately fitting songs in Valinor. Hunting songs, running songs. Love songs. Bawdy descriptive songs of love-making with her husband from in those early days when the elves were first figuring out the mechanics of love-making. (Mortified, Ingwion realizes where that trait came from. Then he has the songs transcribed and sent back to Valmar, petty revenge) Songs about the pure joy of running beside someone. She sings and sings and when her voice is spent, she waits and then as soon as she is physically capable, she sings.

The elves know how powerful song can be to reunite lovers and defeat the power of Morgoth.

("I heard the echoes of her song as we approached Angband.")

A few months later, vocal chords a little raspy from the strain, with a supremely self-satisfied expression on her face, Queen Mother Mahtamë boards a ship and sails back to Valinor. The other passengers regard her with awe. A light wind tickles her cheek as it brings whispers of their stories about her quest to her ears, so that she may laugh about them. 


	3. Eight Blessings

“Our grandchildren are many,” his Mahtamë speaks to him -and how lovely this new form of her name is, having smoothed out both the sounds and the ugly wounds. “Our Ingwë has three daughters and a son; our Indis has two sons and two daughters.”

“Eight!” Alaco laughs, and Mahtamë’s eyes shine with a happiness that the Star-kindler could not make brighter, her joy to finally hear that laughter once more, for that joyous sound was the sound that first awoke her, the sound that pulled her from the primordial mud and into life. “The auspicious number!”

“Yes,” Mahtamë says, opening her arms to gather the weightless mass of air and light that is her spouse’s soul. “Our people’s eighth-born, our well-blessed. Oh,” she cries from happiness that she had walked away from so long ago that no star could light her path back to it, or so she thought, “blessed. So blessed.” 


End file.
